Fallout: Heading South
by MrBright01
Summary: Having left the vault he grew up in after discovering the experiment within and his part of it, Terrance McNair has only one goal remaining, to reach the bombed remains of Florida to complete the dying wish of a friend long gone. OC, No reskinned gameplay.
1. A Lonesome Farm

Of all the things in the wasteland, it was corn that survived mostly unscathed. Tatos had once been mere tomatoes, but the wave of radiation and mutation that had swept the world had changed them from sweet and tangy fruit with a soft and pleasant flesh to a solid and starchy, if still tangy, spud. Mutfruit had once been a simple berry bush, but instead of bunches of small and sweet berries, it now produced two or three bulbous and tart fruits.

No one knew what the hell punga fruit was before the war.

But corn... corn never changes.

Corn had been the king of the American heartland before the bombs dropped. Corn grown for food, shipped to supermarkets across the country. Corn grown for fuel, to supplement that which the atom did not already provide. Corn grown for feed, to raise and fatten the steak and poultry of America. Vast fields of corn once dominated the landscape. And after the war, corn remained even where humanity did not.

Corn was ubiquitous in the world of post-apocalyptic America. As it once fed the first Americans, the indigenous people of the land, and as it once filled the bellies of a large and hungry nation, it continued on, feeding the scattered remnants of humanity who called the once great country home.

Terrance grunted as he knelt and examined the edges of the field he had found. The mere presence of corn was not always indicative of settlement, not in the midwest, but its placement could be. Nature was not a kind or caring mother, as she let her children sprout where they lay, but humanity preferred order to chaos and set their crops in rows almost instinctively.

This corn was in rows.

Aware of the possibility of danger, Terrace checked that his pistol was loose in its holster and started to walk through the rows of corn towards the dilapidated shack he could see a short distance away. He did not hide as he walked, but stepped carefully and made sure to keep his head as high above the corn as he could. Raiders and other monsters in human skin didn't grow crops, and people who did generally shot people who did not on sight. Still, he kept his eyes moving and his ears open, because sometimes raiders would hide in the homes of those they killed, hoping to lure in more victims.

A unnatural quiet pervaded the area as he stepped out of the corn rows onto the cracked and broken remains of an old country road. Broken and rotting wooden rails ran along the other side of the road, outlining an area that was clear of any plant life, even grass and weeds, in the middle of which squatted the shack.

He glanced to one side, at an old and apparently discarded shovel and an ancient bag of fertilizer, then took off his wide brimmed hat to reveal his face to the sunlight and raised his hands high. "There's no dust on that tool, and that sack would never last out here in the weather. I know someone is watching. I am armed, but I come peacefully. I only want to trade for some food or water, if you are open to trade. If you're not, I'll be on my way."

He waited quietly, and after a few seconds, the shack's front door creaked open. A rifle barrel poked out, not quite aimed at him but ready for use, and when he didn't move, the face of a young lady followed. "You say you want to trade for food, but you just walked through a field of it," she said, disbelieving.

Terrance shrugged, his hands still high. "I'm no raider, and this is obviously a farm. I'm not stealing anything if I can help it."

The door opened slightly more, revealing a thin girl little more than thirteen or fourteen, her face slightly gaunt and her limbs thin enough that they shook while trying to keep the long hunting rifle upright and motionless. "What you got to trade, mister?" she asked, her voice a mix of fearful and curious.

"I have some purified water, some meds, a little bit of ammo of different calibers, and caps. Some pre-war canned food too, if you want to trade for variety in your diet."

The door opened a bit more, and she stepped into the light, revealing a head of roughly trimmed red hair and a bad case of malnutrition that was not hidden by the tattered handmade dress she wore. "Yeah, okay, we can… we can…" She stumbled, and the rifle dropped to the dirt, the girl following shortly after.

Terrance waited a moment more, then dropped his hands. "Well, shit," he said eloquently before he walked over and started to drag the girl inside.

* * *

Clair wake up to a pounding headache, her mind slow and fuzzy as she stared at the fire, her body shifted slightly in the blankets she was wrapped in. _I don't remember lighting a fire_, she thought, _didn't have the time or energy to gather wood for the night anyhow_. She'd known something was wrong for a while now, her body growing weaker and weaker, but she hadn't thought herself so far gone that she would pass out in front of…

The stranger!

She convulsed weakly, pushing at the blankets that felt far too heavy and constricting, her eyes already looking for her rifle, or her pa's old pistol, or even just a knife. If not for him, than maybe for herself.

That was when the stranger appeared, leaning over her with a bowl in hand. "You awake now, miss?" he asked, his voice deep and gravely. She nodded slightly, her heart racing, and he gave her a small smile. "If I prop you up, think you can eat a little?" She nodded, and he grunted and pulled on the back of her dress slightly, helping her slide back until she was resting against one of the shack's supports. He handed the bowl to her, then grunted again as he sat across the fire from her, picking up his own bowl and spoon.

She stared at him, astounded. She'd never seen anyone quite so old. His face was covered in wrinkles and lines and more than a few scars, the bits that were not covered by the large and bristly white mustache anyhow, and his hands were covered in the rough skin of someone well used to hard labor. He was wearing a thick and crudely crafted hide shirt and a heavily worn pair of blue denim pants, and beside him she could see his broad brimmed hat and some sort of padded chest piece.

What really caught her eye, however, was the shining gold chain around his neck. Her mother had once worn something like that, until she'd traded it away for food and medicine during the bad year.

Something about the way she stared must have upset the stranger, because he leaned back slightly and glared at her. "Go on, eat up," he said gruffly, digging a spoon into his own bowl. "We'll talk after you eat, this stuff ain't much good once it gets cold."

She looked down at the bowl and saw that there was corn kernels (there was always corn kernels) as well as some cut tato and some small pink cubes that looked so familiar she felt a spark of hopeful joy. She swiftly swirled the soup with her spoon, her hand jittering so hard it splashed slightly, and pulled out one of the small cubes to examine it.

It's was Cram! She hadn't had Cram in years, but she remembered how wonderful the canned meat byproduct was and how full it always made her feel!

Ma always said that it took a real illness to put her daughter off her feed, and she was right, because Clair immediately started to scoop the food almost desperately into her mouth, ignoring the nearly scalding temperature as she guzzled the meal as fast as she could. For a moment she almost flinched when she realized how she was acting in front of the stranger, but the short and obviously amused grunt the man gave before tucking into his own food at a more sedate pace set her mind at ease, and soon her spoon was clacking against the empty bowl.

The man chuckled again and handed over his own half full bowl without a moment's pause.

She ate the second bowl slowly, savoring every drop while she tried to figure out what to say to the stranger, who was sitting quietly and watching her, a slightly bemused light to his eyes despite the somewhat stern cast of his face. Eventually, she set her bowl down. "I… don't really have much for repayment," she muttered, looking around the shack. "I… I have a water pump that pulls up clean water, or clean as it gets, anyhow. Or maybe… maybe a tool or two I can spare? I don't use the rake or the garden spade much any more." She flinched as she spoke. Pa had often warned her about strange men, and after the bad year, she knew from her ma that those warnings had at least some truth to them. The stranger could demand anything, take _anything_, and she'd be unable to resist in her condition, never mind fight. The very idea was terrifying, and she felt her heart start to race.

The man stared for a moment before he smiled gently. "Easy, girl. It's a can of cram, a tato, and some water, nothing to be worried about. If you don't mind, I'll just take a bit of corn to replace my stocks before I go. Looks like it's all you got right now. Speaking of…" He leaned over, grabbing his backpack and dragging it to his side before rummaging a bit and tossing a small plastic bottle to her. "Take one of these."

She looked at the bottle, sounding out the words in her head like her pa had taught her. _Lint-rock Cron-che Vitt-a-mins_. Vitamins? Her ma had traded away one of the last of their chickens to someone during the bad year for some vitamins to try and nurse pa back to health. Pa had been angry about that, angry about her trading a good egg laying chicken for medicine that would only delay things a bit.

He hadn't lasted much longer after that.

She took one of the pills and looked at it. It was shaped like image on the front of the bottle, a strange square drawing of a man with lumpy hand and a ragged, spotted shift with a bow tie on it. The stranger gestured at her, and she ate the pill without further delay, finding herself delighted to realize it actually tasted slightly sweet and pleasant instead of bitter like other pills she'd had before.

"What's your name, miss?"

"My name's Clair, sir," she said quietly. "Clair Jackson."

"Clair then." He looked around the shack. "Call me Terrance. Clair, do you have anything other than corn to eat here?"

She shook her head. "The last hen stopped laying eggs a while ago. I… I ate her. Used to have some canned goods, but I ate them too. Used to trade for more food, but I haven't seen any traders for better part of a year, not since…"

After pa had passed, there had been more traders visiting her home than before. Ma had been… accommodating to the traders. She'd send Clair out to scrounge for tubers, and when she got back, Ma was always ready to make them a big meal, the traders and Clair both. She saved up a fair number of spare cans for them before the traders suddenly stopped showing up one day. She'd left to find out what had happened, and a year later, she was still gone.

Terrance only nodded. "Eating nothing but corn is what almost did you in, young lady. You can't live on just corn. There's enough vitamins there to last you a few months, but you need to grow some more crops. Do you have a neighbor to trade with or something to keep you going?"

She shook her head. "Used to be Tommy Kann lived a few miles away, his and his folks, but last time I went to visit, his folks were gone and Tommy was dead. Very dead." She swallowed hard, trying not to remember the look of her best friend lying on the front porch, eyes open and flies crawling into his mouth... she blinked a few times and forced the memory away. "I got some tatos from their fields before I left, but I dropped a lot of them running from a big lizard on the way home. That was a couple months back."

He frowned. "There's nobody else in the area?"

She shook her head. "Not any more. The Kanns were the last ones here aside from me. Everyone else either died or moved on."

He shook his head, then pushed his pack away. "Well, let's get some rest, it's already getting dark. In the morning, we'll…" He stopped when Clair gasped and struggled to her feet, stumbling to a window. "Hold on, miss, careful there!"

"Oh no," she mumbled, her body shaking as she stared out into the darkening sky, the sun already below the trees. "Oh no, oh no!"

Something about her mannerisms spooked Terrance, and his hand dropped to his pistol. "What comes out at night?" he asked quietly, resting his other hand on her shoulder.

She shuddered and stepped back. "Clawfeet," she said quietly. "They live in the swamp to the east. They're not too bad during the day, but around nightfall they get hungry and aggressive. They hide in the corn and try to get close to the shack at night. Get close enough, and they'll charge. Few weeks ago, one managed to put its foot though the wall. Would have gone worse, but the rifle shot took off one of its toes and the thing ran off screeching." She walked over to the small bed and grabbed something off of the crate next to it, tossing it to Terrance. It was a large, curved claw, easily the size of his thumb. "They're fast, but they also got a pecking order. If you can get rid of the first one that attacks, the rest will usually leave for the night."

Terrance picked up the rifle from where he'd placed it against the wall near the door and looked it over. "How many shots you got left?" he asked.

She shook her head, and her face colored slightly. "Ran out last week," she admitted quietly. "Clawfeet are smart. They know what a rifle is. After the last one I shot, they've been steering clear, but I always made sure to make a show of setting up atop the house every day before the sun fell. I think they've been watching me during the sunset, from the other edge of the field."

Terrance grunted. It was an old hunting rifle that had seen better days but was still workable, and he rooted around in his bag for a moment before handing the girl a dozen rounds of the right size for it. "I want you to go on up on the roof, now. Set yourself up, but don't go blasting at shadows. Just wait and back me up."

Clair was just opening her mouth to ask what he meant when the door swung shut behind him as he stepped out onto the road.

* * *

Terrance stood quietly in the light of an almost full moon, one hand resting gently on the grip of the 5.56mm pistol that had become his best friend over the years, the other hanging at his side, his eyes wide but unmoving.

Many would-be survivors had the wrong idea about watching out for danger. They'd focus on one point, then move on to the next, trying to look everywhere at once, a natural habit for a predatory species like homo Sapiens.

Terrance was not a predator tonight, he was prey, and prey viewed the world differently. Prey could not risk focusing on details, because the world was awash in details, and there was little chance of spotting the right one at any given time.

Prey watched for patterns. Sound. Movement. Scent. They took in the world around them not as a thousand little details but as one large, combined experience. When a predator stalks its prey, it might hide its sounds well, or its scent, or its movement, but even in perfection it could fail. A predator who was absolutely silent made a sound all its own, by the way its body blocked and redirected the sounds around it.

Terrance could feel the unnatural silence in the corn field now, the vague sense of something unseen and unknown but also unarguably present guiding his eyes. He saw the occasional cornstalk move just slightly against the sway of the leaves in the wind. Heard the brief moments of silence as the creatures paused in their steps to carefully shift their weight.

He didn't know what a "clawfoot" was, but he was fairly sure of what it was not. It was not a Yao Gui. The big irradiated bears would have simply roared and charged, trusting its bulk and strength to protect it against a lone defender. Giant Geckos might hunt in packs, but they rarely used stealth and certainly didn't stalk their prey. And humanoid monsters, raiders or mutants or ghouls, always used their arms and hands rather than feet as their means of attack.

The stalks stopped shifting, and in the growing darkness, Terrance could sense the watchful patience as the creatures settled and waited for the right moment. He didn't turn his head or move his arms, but quietly said, "Clair, get ready. I am going to do something to draw them out. Don't shoot the first one that attacks, I'll deal with it. I want you to find a good target from the others, something from the back, teach them to respect your reach. Got it?"

He heard a quiet grunt and took it as a yes. He turned slightly, twisting to have one eye on the roof of the shack behind him. The silence deepened, as if several creatures suddenly held their breath, but still they did nothing, so he started to lift his arms, as if stretching, and in doing so removed his hand from his pistol.

The reaction was immediate and violent. A multitude of piercing shrieks sounded out from the corn field, and a gangly creature lunged out at him, a pale pink and black blur that ran at him with long, bounding strides.

Terrance immediately turned, pivoting on one foot to spin one step further away from the charging creature as his hand dropped and plucked his pistol from his holster. He didn't bother to raise his arm to aim at the thing attacking him but fired from the hip, angling the gun slightly upwards. His gunshot lit up the night, giving him a brief flash that revealed dark black eyes and a beaked maw that curved so sharply that it looked like an open pair of garden clippers, and then the blur was past him, tumbling across the bare dirt to fetch up against the wall of the shack with a heavy and very final thud.

The sound of his shot barely faded before a second, louder gunshot rang out as Clair found her target and fired. Another creature somewhere in the cornfield shrieked in agony, and the stalks suddenly exploded in all directions as the remaining creatures fled.

Terrance reholstered his weapon and waited quietly, observing the world around him once more and finding that the darkness was now empty as it should be. Still, it was best to be cautious, and he was quick to pull himself up onto the roof and sit next to Clair, who was looking out into the night warily. "You said they tend to keep away once you deal with the initial attack?"

Clair nodded.

"Good." He settled himself slightly and drew his pistol. "Go inside and get some rest. I'll keep watch, just in case. In the morning, you can keep an eye out for me while I rest up. Deal?"

Clair smiled and started to climb down, then stopped and looked at him for a moment. Without a word, she slid her rifle up onto the roof, leaving it for him in case he needed it, and then headed into the shack.

He waited quietly until the the first snore drifted through the night before he picked up the rifle and started to inspect it.

* * *

The clawfoot was even more disturbing in the sunlight.

It must have been a bird of some sort back before the species mutated. The stubby, digitless forelimbs and strange pink skin certainly fit, as did the few small feathers that still clung to its body. But nature had not been kind to the creature. Its beak was twisted, curving inward to form a pair of natural shears that also happened to leave the creature unable to fully close its mouth. Its legs were unnaturally long, easily twice the length of the rest of its body, and each digit was topped with a large and vicious claw more suited to a hawk or eagle. But it was the long, almost graceful neck that gave away the creature's origins.

"Grus americana," Terrance mumbled to himself, pulling out a small sketchbook and an ancient mechanical pencil.

"What's that?" asked Clair, rubbing her eyes as she stepped outside.

"Before the war and FEV and everything, this would have been called a whooping crane. Was a big bird even then, but I guess when it mutated it grew a set of natural weapons and an aggressive nature to match." Even as he spoke, the pencil moved across the page, and when Clair had a peek she saw a remarkably lifelike sketch of the dead creature.

Terrance noticed the attention and glanced at the girl. "Feeling a bit better today?" he asked.

The girl swiped at the fringe of red hair trying to fall into her eyes and smiled. "I'm still feeling a little weak, but I feel better than I have in ages. Never really thought about the problem with eating just corn. Thanks, sir." Terrance nodded and continued working on his sketch.

Clair gathered up the hoe and the fertilizer and dragged them into the shack. She came out with his backpack and set it on the ground next to him, then returned to the hut and came out with a small sack and her rifle, which she put next to the backpack. She started checking over the corn, pulling off ripe ears and stuffing them in the bag. "So," she said, drawing out the vowel sound for a moment. "Where are you going once you're done with your drawing?"

Terrance stiffened, the pencil freezing in place for several seconds before he sighed and tucked the book away, his head remaining bowed. "I'm heading south east. A long way south east. Got an appointment I need to keep."

Clair walked over to stand next to him, dropping the sack in the dirt next to her and picking up her rifle. "Sounds good," she said, a smile on her face.

The shack burst into flames.

"Fuck!" shouted Terrance, stumbling back in surprise. He looked around for a moment, as if he could find a means to stop an already furious fire on a whim, then looked back at the young woman basking in the fire's warmth. "What the hell did you do?"

"I burned it." She said this in a calm, almost detached manner, and when she turned to face him, her smile had vanished, replaced with a face that was desperately, deliberately devoid of emotion. "My family is dead and gone. So are my neighbors. Haven't seen a trader in ages, guess they're dead too, or maybe they forgot me, or maybe they just don't want to travel miles and miles for one girl, who knows. I could stay here and hope the next random visitor isn't a monster who wants to eat me or a raider who wants to rape me and then eat me, or if I am real lucky maybe I'll starve to death because there is fuckall for me to eat around here that isn't corn. Or, I can follow along and see where we end up."

Terrance stared at her for a moment, then gave her a small smile and walked over, standing next to her and setting a hand on her shoulder. "Fair enough, miss. But did you really need to burn it?" he asked.

"Need? Maybe not. But now I can't chicken out a mile down the road." She leaned over and hoisted the sack over her shoulder before giving Terrance a small smile. "Besides, I took everything of value with me."

* * *

**A/N:** So, been toying with the idea of a Fallout fanfic for ages, but needed to make sure I was comfortable working on something that'll take this amount of effort, because I have no intention of just following the pre-plodded footsteps of the game. I have some solid ideas, and needed something for practice writing, so now is the time I guess. No promises on update schedule or the like, but I am aiming for and update every couple weeks.

Much of what is seen in this story will be new. The fallout world is not universal by design, but varied based on the original local cultures and wildlife, something I intend to embrace in this effort. You'll undoubtedly see deathclaws and ghouls at some point, but there will also be new and unique things, like the Clawfeet above.


	2. Welcome to New Town, Population 2

It would probably have surprised pre-war scholars just how long and how well roads would survive after the bombs dropped. Although the pavement itself might be cracked, it was still a flat space with the occasional tuft of grass instead of being completely reclaimed by nature.

Terrance was not sure why this was, but he suspected there was something in the pavement itself to inhibit plant growth. Even if he now wandered the wastes like any other survivor, he had enough background in science to be suspicious about how natural or unnatural the changes to the world really were.

Mere radiation could not have created the strangeness that now inhabited the world. Radiation alone would not turn a lizard into the giant and deadly Deathclaws that now terrorized all other life. Scorpions the size of small cars should not even be possible, but the small scar on his shoulder and memories of a full day of feverish nightmares caused by their venom was proof enough for him that they were real. And two headed cows were common enough that nobody seemed to question their existence and looked at him funny if he asked about one headed cows.

No, there had to be something in the pavement, some sort of chemical, either a deliberate additive or an unintended side effect from the effort to reduce reliance on petroleum…

"Terrance?"

… because if there was one thing Terrance had learned about pre-war America it was how willing they were to place the betterment of the nation over its inhabitants, anything from poisoning the ground for the sake of cheaper roadwork to entrapping their citizens in a nightmarish vault for hundreds of years…

"Terrance."

… because lord knows whoever authorized the vault experiments was a righteous and pure blooded good old citizen of the U.S…

"Terrance!"

Terrance stumbled over something and hit the ground hard, chin first. He rolled to one side to glare at his traveling companion, only to see Clair gripping her rifle tight and staring. He rolled back the other way and looked forward to see one of the wonderful wasteland critters he'd been thinking about.

The praying mantis rose on its legs, its barbed forelimbs spread wide in a threatening display, it's wings fluttering slightly and revealing the violet coloration usually hidden under the dull green carapace. _Stagmomantis carolina_ had been prevalent in the US before the bombs, and Terrance even remembered seeing a few in his vault, deliberately bred to minimize potential pests in the gardens that supplemented the preserved food they mostly ate. But where those would easily fit in the palm of his hand, the warped creature before him was the size of a small dog, two feet high, and its hissing was much, much deeper than the original critter.

He heard Clair pulling back the bolt on her rifle, and he waved one arm to the side. "Don't shoot it!" he hissed vigorously, keeping the hand waving and watching the mantis rotate slightly to follow it, continuing its threat display.

"It's a giant mantis," she hissed back. "What do you want me to do, wave back at it?"

"Kinda, yeah."

"What?"

He winced at her shout, waving his hand that much more to keep it focused on anything but his face. "No, really. They're not that dangerous alone, but I really don't want it biting an eye out or something. Walk around it and start waving the barrel of your rifle at it. They're fairly stupid creatures, it should get him to focus on the barrel and let me get my face out of attack range."

She didn't say anything, but he heard the scuffing of her shoes as she walked around him. Eventually she entered his field of vision and started waving the rifle up and down at the insect. It turned away obligingly, and Terrance quickly scuttled back on his hands and knees until he was out of easy jump range.

He brushed himself off and shook his head as the mantis turned back towards him, still hissing, its little clawed limbs held high. "You too squeamish to eat a bug, miss?" When she shook her head, even if she seemed a little pale at the thought, Terrance walked to one side and grabbed a stick. He came back and jabbed at the bug with the stick until it struck, latching on to the wood and biting it viciously. Terrance pulled the creature to one side, dragging it by its own grip, and stomped once on its thorax, crushing it instantly.

"You'll probably like it," he said, reaching down and ripping legs off. "The inner bits are unpleasant, but the limbs are almost like crab legs."

He didn't even look up as Clair backed away slowly. "Terrance, are these things dangerous?"

He grunted and smiled to himself as he worked on the corpse. "Not particularly. It's take a lot of them to kill a human who can fight back."

"Does that look like enough of them to be a problem?"

He looked up to see the forest to the left side of the road shifting as if in a breeze that he could see but not feel. The trees were filled with mantids, slowly creeping their way forward, swaying slightly from side to side as they did so. The pre-war mantids would often do that to disguise themselves as twigs and leaves, but with the huge mantids he was looking at, it came off as less concealing and more threatening, and with every little sway, they crept slightly closer.

"Fuck," said Terrance eloquently. He slowly stood up from the dead mantis. "Don't bother shooting or anything. On my signal, just run like hell the other way, and don't stop till I tell you, or they eat you. Got it?"

Clair nodded, slowly slinging her rifle onto her back.

"Run!" Terrance did not wait for her to move, but immediately turned and took off into the forest. He didn't need to look back to know they were being chased, because he could hear them, a swarm of limbs and wings scuttling after him, so many that it sounded like a million leaves blowing against the pavement. Clair was ahead, and pulling even further ahead by the moment, which was good because the sound was getting closer too.

He wheezed and ran harder.

After what felt like an eternity but probably only lasted a minute, he burst out into the sunlight and promptly fell into a small river. He didn't let the sudden shock of cold water slow him, and in moments he had dragged himself up a river bank on the other side and looked around.

"Here," he heard Clair call, and he looked to find her a little ways downstream, soaking wet and uncomfortable looking, but alive with her supplies and rifle still intact.

Reassured, Terrance finally gave in and slumped onto the dirt to catch his breath.

Clair wandered over and sat next to him, pulling off her backpack and checking its contents. "Those things going to cross the river?"

"No," said Terrance. He coughed and pulled himself up to check his own equipment. "They're only bugs and are usually ambush predators. Crossing the river puts us officially in the 'not worth it' column." The corn and canned goods were both fine, a little water wouldn't hurt them, and his spare cloths would dry eventually. The miscellaneous junk he'd collected, all the strange screws and bolts and gears he carried in case they were needed, were not likely to rust up, not if they'd lasted this long after a civilization ending nuclear war.

But there at the bottom of the pack, the worst sort of surprise greeted him. "Fuck," he said, pulling out the water logged box and opening it to reveal a small reloading press and the now completely ruined gunpowder he used for his ammo. He pulled out the press to replace it in his pack and tossed the box into the river to watch it sink.

"Problem?" asked Clair, looking confused.

"That was all the gunpowder I had to reload my ammo. Until I find more, I only have…" he ran his hands along the bumps on his belt that held what he felt he needed to quickly access… "thirty shots. Wouldn't be so bad, but some things out here take a lot of killing. Stand guard a minute." He pulled out his pistol and started wiping it down, checking it carefully and drying it as well as he could while Clair watched the trees nervously.

Once he finished, he gave Clair's rifle a quick clean, but unlike his pistol, the rifle was robust and built to cope with a poor environment. "How many shots do you have left?" he asked as he handed it back.

"Seven," she said after a quick check of her pockets.

"Right. Don't shoot anything unless I tell you to or it's literally going to eat one of us in the next couple seconds. Want to save the ammo in case something unpleasant finds us, your rifle packs a bigger punch." He pulled out an old compass and a weather beaten plastic map and started looking at it. "Newton is about a day away. Any idea if anyone's living there?"

She thought for a moment, then nodded. "Sounds like New Town. Lot of the merchants that came our way passed through New Town, supposedly. Should be a fair sized settlement there." She thought for a moment, trying to remember information she'd heard years before in passing. "Used to be some farming land outside town, and everyone who survived just kinda kept living there after the war, I heard."

He nodded and took one last look around before tucking the map away. "Good. With any luck, someone will be willing to trade some useable ammo for caps." He grinned at the girl "I doubt they need more corn, after all."

* * *

"... I guess that's why the merchants stopped coming."

They were standing on one end of a long concrete bridge on the north side of New Town, looking at the large wall that was on the other side. It was a simple wal, with a gate made of scraps of wood, sheet metal, and several other random things, including a few tires and what looked like an old car door made into a viewing window in the wall.

The gate itself was smashed open, and even from this distance, Terrance could make out the bodies scattered around it. Several dead humans lay in the road, and a pack brahmin had collapsed on its side, its guts scattered around it.

He held out his arm to block Clair as she started to step forward. "Hold up here," he said, lowering himself slightly and motioning for her to join him. "Hang here at this end. Watch your back. If you hear me screaming bloody murder, good luck."

He crept forward, crossing the bridge at a slow walk, his pistol already in hand. The stench of the rotting dead was horrible, a nauseating combination of rotting meat and spilled bowels. He looked closely at the dead bodies, noticing that the fresher ones were ripped to shreds while the older ones were damaged and had some bits missing but were comparatively intact, then checked behind the gate and found even more bodies behind the walls. The view was enough to tell him what he needed to know, and after a last glance down the road at the fields and eventual houses ahead, he turned to find Clair crouching next to him, hiding behind the walls and looking at the side of the bridge she was supposed to be on.

"Why are you over here?" he asked quietly, trying to ignore the sudden jolt of adrenaline he felt at her surprisingly stealthy arrival.

She didn't say a word, just pointed at the figure standing across the bridge, and Terrance felt every orifice in his body clench tight.

It stood at least nine feet tall, even with its hunched over posture, its scaly skin a dark brown color and thick enough to make the creature flex stiffly as it moved. Long, viciously clawed hands shifted slightly as the creature lifted its sharp toothed maw and sniffed the air, glancing to either side of the bridge. A pair of horns rose from its thick skull and curled down over its beady red eyes, before rising slightly at the tips.

"Fuck me," Terrance whispered, pulling Clair back slowly and making sure he was hidden by the makeshift wall. "Deathclaw." The pinnacle of wasteland terror, deathclaws were the sort of thing that killed towns when they arrived. Powerful enough to rip through steel, vicious enough to tear through buildings to get to its prey, and smart enough to search old hunting grounds for scavengers. Terrance glanced at the gates and recognized the damage for what it was, claw marks.

Then the creature turned to face the gate and started walking forward.

Clair raised her rifle and started to take aim, but stopped when Terrance tugged at her sleeve and shook his head. He waved at her to follow and together they started to move down the road at a quick run.

They ran past the fields and into the town proper, a small pre-war town. Around and sometimes built into the rotting frames of pre-war houses, ramshackle huts and merchant's stalls had been set up, running along the suspiciously clear road as it turned to the west. Bodies were scattered across the area, many of them in the roadway itself, and while some were in an advanced state of decay, others were fresh enough and in small enough pieces that Terrance immediately suspected the Deathclaw had come through after some other calamity and simply cleaned up what people had remained after the initial disaster.

A particular stall caught his eye, with a large wooden cutout of a pistol crudely nailed to the roof, and with a quick glance to make sure the Deathclaw had not started charging, he jumped the counter and started checking the stall.

It was well picked over, apparently ransacked during one of the two events that had killed this community, but he found a locked ammo box and a few cans of soy based Imitation Seafood that looked intact. He barely managed to pick them up and shove them into his backpack, when he heard Clair whisper "Hurry, it's coming around the bend in the road!"

He turned to look at her, and the sudden horror on her face as she turned to look back at him was all the warning he had before something heavy slammed into his side. He tumbled, arms flying out instinctively, and he found himself struggling with a human, his skin dried and stretched across its body, clothing worn and sun bleached, and eyes that were nearly white. It clawed at his arms, trying to pull them in to bite, and Terrance gave it a solid thump on the side of the head with the butt of his pistol, knocking it to one side.

He rolled in the other direction, jumping the counter again and turning to watch the man flail and tumble as it tried to get over the paltry waist high barrier. "Just a ghoul," he said, giving the thing a swift kick to the knee that sent it down to the ground again, using the time it was taking to pull itself up to check on the deathclaw, which had stopped to stick its huge head into a half demolished pre-war house.

He was still looking at it when the rifle went off behind him as Clair shot the rising ghoul.

The deathclaw whirled and stared directly at him, beady eyes nearly glowing red with fury as it opened its arms wide and roared, a deep and thunderous sound that even at its distance made the ground tremble slightly.

"Fuck!"

Terrance didn't check on the downed ghoul, or even really look around himself. He merely grabbed Clair by the arm and hauled ass towards the only significant structure he felt he could reach in time, a big red brick building with old double sided swinging doors that had wood in place of the glass it once held. It was only when he got close that he noticed the chains across the doors and held in place by a thick padlock.

_Subtlety be damned, no time now,_ he thought as he shot the lock. It took three shots before the lock deformed enough to be ripped apart, barely a second more to clear the chains, while with each passing moment the sound of the running deathclaw's thunderous footsteps growing louder. He ripped the door open and shoved Clair in before he dashed in, the door swinging shut behind him.

In the darkness, barely lit by old emergency lights, was a bowling alley, still decorated with Halloween-themed plastic cutouts and old string lights, dry rotting shoes in their cubby holes, moldy food still sitting on the counter along with the skeleton of the diner who had been eating it. He was beginning to wonder why the doors had been chained, until ghouls started crawling out from the pits behind the lanes, from the shoe counter, and a few even dropping from holes in the ceiling.

The deathclaw roared, its steps quickening as it began to charge the door at their backs. The ghouls growled and pulled themselves off the floor, shambling forward. And Terrance cursed.

* * *

**A/N:** Before anyone comments, Clair is very much not a survivor at this point. She was a farm girl raised in relative solitude and is now facing a large and dangerous world. She panicked and killed the ghoul rather than trusting that her fellow traveler, who showed little concern for a single lone ghoul, was capable of handling it.

Humans do dumb things when they panic, and shooting the ghoul was a _very _dumb thing. If they survive, the fact that it was a dumb thing will be discussed.

This was a little short, but I'm trying to update regularly, even if the updates are small.


	3. Mama's Fury

The deathclaw matriarch was not amused. This place had been an excellent location for her nest, and now it was at risk.

When she'd first arrived, the humans had been thick as flies, clean humans who smelled of baked animal fat and burning powder, hiding behind their walls and buildings in numbers enough to make a direct attack dangerous even for her. But she made a temporary nest outside of town, out of reach of the guns they carried, and she waited. She'd been gravid for some time, and knew she'd be forced to lay her eggs soon, but she had lived a long time and knew how humans worked.

Her patience had been rewarded. Other humans, wild humans, had arrived, smelling of foul chemicals and blood, and they did what they always did when they met clean humans, they fought. She'd waited patiently, and once the wild humans had managed to get past the walls, she struck. Both kinds of humans fell to her claws and teeth, and when she was done, the door to the human nest was wide open.

She'd killed many of the humans, allowing those who were too dangerous smelling or too fast to be worth the trouble to escape. She killed and feasted and explored, choosing a particular building for her nest. It had an opening large enough for her to pass through without discomfort, big smooth floors, and only a few metal things that she shoved out without much effort. Her gut filled with meat and as safe as she could be anywhere, she'd crafted a nest and laid her eggs.

From there, the human's nest became a paradise. Fresh humans would visit regularly, and while they were often armed with guns, there were never enough to be a danger. She killed, she ate, and she added the uneaten corpses to her nest, their decomposing bodies keeping her eggs warm and hiding them well. The smell attracted the occasional scavenger, but they were consumed or added to the nest.

The only real concern she'd had for her nest was the large building that smelled of mildew and ghouls. They had to be hiding within, and while they were weak, they were plentiful and might damage her eggs even by accident if they assaulted her all at once. But the entrances to that building had been sealed tighter than ghouls could break, so she'd watched it carefully but ultimately judged her eggs were secure.

She'd left the nest for less than an hour, and returned to find signs of more humans. She'd worked her way in, hoping to find and ambush them, and then noticed the sounds of their weapons and and saw them standing near the ghoul filled building. She roared at them, hoping to intimidate them into fleeing, but her vision started to go red when she saw them break the seals to the big building and jump in as she charged.

Now, she faced the prospect of not only hunting down and killing the humans but the many ghouls within. She would draw their attention and fight through the bites and claws of the ghouls and the stings of the humans until her eggs were safe. And for all that she believed she would not be harmed, it would still be a long, tiresome, painful day, because she dared not act quietly and cautiously. Every moment the building was open, there was a chance a ghoul would make its way out and wander into her nest.

Mama Deathclaw had work to do, and Mama was angry.

* * *

Terrance lunged to the side, dragging Clair with him as the doors slammed open to reveal a full ton of angry, mutated lizard. Its roar were answered by the throaty growl of countless ghouls as they zeroed in on the big, loud, obvious target.

As the deathclaw surged forward, smashing through the ancient shoe counter in front of the lanes, the two humans dove over and behind the ancient diner counter. Terrance checked his pistol and leaned in, whispering loudly to be heard over the roars and snarls.

"There has to be a roof access somewhere. We're going to circle around the fight and find it, get on the roof." He glanced to one side, then grabbed a small kitchen knife covered in dust and grime before handing it to her. "Don't shoot unless its life of death, don't stop to kill anything. Ghouls have shit for balance, nudge them to the side and keep moving. Ready?"

He looked into her eyes and saw as the panic and fear faded slightly, her breathing growing deeper and less rushed. She nodded, and without another word, they both rose and started to run.

In the short time they had been hiding, the battle had begun in ernest between the deathclaw and the ghouls. A growling horde of feral irradiated humans was clinging and biting at the deathclaw's thick scaly hide to very little effect. The great beast roared and swung, each swipe of its claws scattering ghoulish limbs and splashing ghoulish blood.

Terrance did not bother with stealth, but focused on speed, dashing along the front of the lanes. Even as he ran, more ghouls were arriving to the fight from back rooms, largely ignoring the two humans in favor of the roaring monstrosity. They slid past an ancient and silent arcade before darting down along the side of the final lane in the row. Terrance arrived first and didn't slow, slamming his shoulder into the door. It exploded into a thousand splinters as the rotting wood gave under the force of his charge, and he tumbled into the back of the lanes.

He barely noticed the growl before he felt the weight of another ghoul land on him. He lifted his arm, cramming the thick if ratty leather of his coat's cuff into the ghoul's mouth, using his other arm to protect his eyes and face from the ghoul's clawed fingers.

Then Clair slammed into the ghoul, using her entire body as a battering ram to knock the ghoul sprawling. She was up within moments, and the ghoul was only just beginning to rise when she slammed the kitchen knife into the back of its knee, sending it to the floor with a gurgle.

She turned to give terrance a smile, then stumbled as the ghoul wrapped an arm around her leg and pulled. She fell forward, the knife sliding out of her hand, then rolled to start kicking the creature on the face.

Terrance didn't waste any time chasing the knife. With the creature already on the ground, it was simple to lift his foot and bring it down on the back of its head with a crack. Two more stomps shattered the ghould's skull, and Clair scrambled over to her knife before returning to his side.

Terrance spotted what he was looking for and pointed at it, a tube of steel mesh around a ladder with a hatch at the top of it that was against an outer wall on the other side of the service area, only for them both to flinch back as the deathclaw smashed through the mechanisms that made the back of the lanes, scattering ancient pins and metal, a dozen ghouls clinging to it. It snorted and shook itself before turning its angry glare on the two humans that had started all this, taking several deep breaths, its tongue flicking in and out rapidly as it tasted the air.

"Get to the roof," Terrance said, as quiet as he could, refusing to break the staring contest that had started between him and the giant beast. He kept his arm down and he stepped slightly to one side, watching the beady reptilian eyes follow his steps. "When it charges, avoid it and get up there."

"She's not exactly going to ignore me," Clair said back.

"Sure she will." He lifted his arm, and the deathclaw leaned forward and roared, bloody spittle flying halfway across the room. In response he fired a single bullet.

* * *

Mama had a very special place on her nest planned for these two humans, right on top, where she could see them decompose. Ghouls were very little danger to her, but they were persistent, and they annoyed Mama to no end. She had slashed many of the ghouls to pieces, but some of the survivors were clinging to her limbs and back in hard to reach areas, and she knew from experience that they would remain their indefinitely until she found something to smash them against.

She rammed her way through a small opening, hoping to scrape them off in passing, and found herself standing in front of the two humans, who stared at her in the odd, quiet way they sometimes did when she cornered them.

The male said something to the female and moved to one side, standing out in the open and slightly in front of the other. She tasted the air and was surprised to find the two humans were not mated or related, making it odd that the male was being so defensive.

The male then raised his one arm, a tiny weapon in his hand, and Mama snarled. A human with a weapon was a human ready to fight and die, and she was more than happy to rip him apart and feed on his carcass. She leaned forward and let out a roar, then stopped and stumbled back when there was a flash of light and then a searing, unimaginable pain in her left eye.

She roared again, now shrill and pained, shaking her head repeatedly. Then she heard a second bang of the human's weapon and felt that bullet bounce off the horn over her right eye. She shut her eyes tight, lowered her head, and charged.

* * *

Clair didn't even need to hide. The deathclaw ignored her completely, too busy attacking the surrounding area with unthinking fury. Huge metal cabinets and delicate gearing that had survived the very end of human civilization became little more than twisted metal wreckage as the beast slammed around the room, smashing into the walls and crushing everything within reach with its massive claws.

Terrance had calmly rolled aside the moment the deathclaw charged him, then he quietly walked down along the rows and rows of pin loading mechanisms. Whenever the deathclaw stopped to look around or turned towards Clair, he would raise his gun and fire a single shot, and while he failed to hit its other eye, it certainly worked to keep the creature focused on him… and focused on keeping its head down and eyes shut.

A ghoulish snarl finally got Clair to make her move, dashing over to the enclosed ladder and starting to scramble up. There was a brief moment of panic when she reached the top and she was forced to push the hatch open with all of her might, the tap of something trying to grab her leg from below lending her terrified strength, and with a roar she shoved the hatch open and scrambled into the sunlight.

The ghoul tried to follow her up, its clawed arm reaching for her as its dead, empty eyes stared at her, only for it to growl when she slammed the heavy hatch over that arm. It struggled and shook, trying to push back, but the trapped arm robbed it of any leverage it might have had, especially once Clair slashed at it with the kitchen knife, cutting depper and deeper until she finally managed to expose the bone itself. A quick jerk of the barely mobile arm resulting in a gruesome cracking sound as the bones within broke, and the creature let out a snarl as it tumbled down the ladder, its pained howl only ceasing when she slammed the hatch shut.

She breathed deeply, desperately, her arms starting to shake as the adrenaline started to fade, only to scream when a leathery hand grabbed her arm from behind. She spun, arm raising instinctively, and the severed arm still clutched tight in her fist rose and smashed the ghoul across the face, sending it stumbling back. She rounded on it, knife raised, then stopped when it shouted "Fucking Christ on the Mountain, girl!" while clutching at its… his face.

For a brief moment, she almost pressed her attack, because the relation of this creature and the one she'd disarmed (and her mind, already struggling with everything the day had thrown at her, nearly caused her to giggle at that thought) was undeniable. Same tough, leathery skin, same strange, slightly off putting tannish color. The lack of hair, claw like hands, they were all the same.

But she found it very hard to feel threatened when he raised one hand to ward her off blindly while the other was pressed against what little of his nose remained, stemming the flow of thick blood dribbling from where he'd been hit. He sniffed a few times and tilted his head back, revealing a thin but prominent jawline and some of the thickest eyebrows Clair had ever seen. He was staring at her awkwardly with his head back, but his eyes were clear and focused, bright blue instead of the pale white of ferals, and his gaze held and intelligence that set him apart from the ghouls in the bowling alley below. "Fuck, girl," he said, his voice light but raspy, "yah didn't need to smack me with that, I was just trying to give you a hand."

At that, Clair's composure shattered, and she started making muffled grunting sounds as she reversed the ghoul arm she was holding and offered it to him, hand first. He looked at it then started to chuckle as well, causing her to start laughing in full, tears starting to form in her eyes as the strange circumstances and stress caused her to have a small breakdown.

He stopped chuckling and smiled before getting to his feet, causing her to step back in shock. The ghoul was tall, towering more than a foot over her, and while he was thin, she knew ghouls could be surprisingly tougher than they looked. The fact that he was laughing along and seemed well meaning helped, but she was still reminded that he was a potential threat, and one far more dangerous than the ferals.

Then the deathclaw let out another thunderous road, and the building actually shook slightly from her rampage. "Fuck," said the ghoul, jumping slightly at the sound. "Mama's fucking pissed. What did you do?"

Clair stepped away from the hatch, glancing around the roof nervously. "My traveling buddy shot her in the eye," she said, and she discovered that a properly motivated ghoul was quite capable of going pale, even with their slower blood flow.

"Fuuuuuck," he said, his arms going limp as he glared at the sky above him. "Mama's going to be riled as fuck for at least a day, then. At least. Hope you got some water with you, girl, ain't got shit up here." He shrugged and sat back down on the roof.

She sat across from him and reached into her back, pulling out a corncob and holding it in his direction. "I'm Clair. Been up here a while?" she asked.

"Almost a fucking week," he answered with a sigh. He smiled at her offer, but still waved his hand to decline. "Nesting deathclaws are territorial as fuck. Been waiting in the hope of her moving on once the eggs hatch, or maybe sneaking off while she rests, but she was guarding her nest like a hawk even before she got good and pissed." He paused for a moment, then shrugged. "And call me Gaul."

Clair glanced down at the corn cob in her and sighed before she started to strip the husk off of it. "Sure you're not hungry?"

"Fucking starving, girl," he said, but he continued to smile. "Just because we ghouls can live off fairy fats and radiation doesn't mean we don't prefer to eat instead. We just don't die of starvation, and you're gonna need it if you want to escape, because Mama's going to be a bitch to avoid."

He pointed to one side, at a rusting pre-war structure, a concrete bloxy building with a huge metal awning bigger than the road that ran along it. "Mama's nest is in that old refueling station. Guess she liked the big doors or something, she nudged the old car wrecks out when she set up house. She likes to sit with her head sticking out, keeping an eye on the area and relying on the walls there to defend her back. And she's a light sleeper, kept shouting at me whenever I moved around too much up here."

Clair munched on her corn and tried not to get too worked up yet. She hadn't heard any screaming, so despite the horrifying sounds below, she suspected Terrance might still be alive, and as tempting as it was to rush into action, the idea of facing the deathclaw below without a solid idea on how to survive it was unappealing.

* * *

The deathclaw had continued to rampage for half an hour before finally pulling herself out of the front door, covered in a thick layer of gore, dust, and debris. She looked up at the two trapped people on the roof and let out a low snarl before trudging over to the ancient refueling station. She entered, vanishing from view briefly before her front half poked back out the garage door as she settled on the ground with a low rumble and started cleaning her claws with her tongue.

It wasn't until hours later, as the sun started to set, that there was a muffled thump on the roof hatch, followed by a gentle, rhythmic tap. Clair shot to her feet and dashed over, then stopped and returned to her bag to grab her rifle and then glanced at Gaul and nodded towards the hatch. He got behind the hatch and grabbed the handle, waited for Clair to aim at the opening, and then heaved the hatch open.

Clair almost didn't recognize Terrance. He was covered in filth, ranging from blood to grease and ground in dirt. His moustache had gone from white and grey to almost black, apparently soaked with blood from a nosebleed, judging by how swollen and discolored his nose was. Several of the clasps on his leather armor had been broken, and when he pulled himself to his feet on the roof, he was favoring his left leg. He looked tired, in pain, and pissed.

He gave a short nod to Gaul, then turned to look at Clair, giving her the once over to see if she was injured. "Good," he grumbled, hobbling over to an ancient air conditioning unit and slumping against it. "Didn't have time to check on you earlier. Didn't find your body or anything, so I figured you made it up here. New friend?"

He gave Gaul the same once-over, and the ghoul shuffled his feet slightly when the old man made an obvious show of examining the armor he was wearing, leather with reinforcing metal strips sewn onto it in an almost haphazard manner. "Survivor of the town?" he asked.

Gaul nodded. "Call me Gaul," he said, holding out his hand. After a long moment where Terrance just stared into Gaul's eyes, he reached out and they shook hands. "Ran up here when Mama Deathclaw there came knocking. Managed to use a car to get myself within reach of the roof, and I have never climbed so fast in my life. More importantly, how the fuck did you avoid her?"

Terrance laughed, then stopped when he heard the growl of the deathclaw from the street below. Terrance grumbled and dragged himself to his feet before hobbling over to the edge to watch it snarl at him and settle herself down further in the doorway to the gas station. "The alley had a drop cealing. Plenty of room above the paneling. So while she was blindly trying to kill me, I got up here and held the fuck still. So, Mama… She's nesting there, then?"

"Yep."

"Fuck." Terrance noticed that Clair looked slightly confused, and hobbled back to the air conditioner before waving her over. "Deathclaws are usually pack animals. They claim a territory, they keep their territory, and that's the only reason they don't kill a lot more people. Folks tend to die when they stumble into deathclaw territory, not the other way around. But if the alphas of a pack are killed, the others will scatter, eventually joining another pack or forming their own. Mama down there made a nest and has stayed with it, meaning she's going to have a bunch of little deathclaws to watch out for. This is her territory now, and we're in it, which means she will kill us, hungry or not, if she can get to us."

Almost as if to prove the point, the deathclaw let out another snarl. Even in the falling darkness, they could see her glaring at them. Their vision was nothing special in the darkness, but she seemed to glare all the same.

Terrance gave her a wave, drawing out a proper roar. He then noticed how Gaul and Clair were both looking at him as if he was mad. "It's not like she can be more pissed at me," he said with a shrug.

Gaul shook his head and chuckled before sitting down across from the old man. "Well, better you than me. I've been stuck here for a week now because I don't trust her to be gone. I've seen at least one other person try to escape her. She likes to stomp her way out of town, then come back quietly to see if there is any prey hiding around and trying to sneak away. She may not be human-smart, but she's not stupid either."

Terrance nodded. "Well, we'll have to get rid of her."

Clair crossed her arms and frowned down at him. "I've got a few shots and all, but I doubt I can do that much to her."

"We need something with enough power to take her down or at least drive her out," said Terrance, glancing around the ground. "Gaul, you're local, any idea where we can find something like that? Got, I dunno, some convenient explosive barrels or grenades?"

The ghoul shook his head. "Fairly sure any grenades we had saved were used in the attack before the deathclaw showed up. And I don't even want to know who keeps convenient explosive barrels sitting around town."

"Giant pile of nuclear batteries?"

"What? No! Why… wait." Gaul walked over to the far side of the roof, away from the deathclaw and her nest. "If I remember, one of those asshole raiders was wearing some power armor. Cobbled together horseshit, and sure the fuck didn't save them from Mama there, but any power armor is going to require a fusion core to run it. They'll explode if you damage them." He pointed to a crumpled heap of metal several houses down. "There it is. And it looks like the torso is still intact, at least."

"Hmmm. Hey, Clair, how far do you think you can hit something the side of my fist?" Terrance held up a closed fist to demonstrate. "Think you could hit it if it was next to the nest?"

To her credit, Clair did not answer immediately. She walked over to the edge of the roof and looked carefully at the range. After a few moments, she looked around the roof and walked over to one of the big air conditioning units. She leaned her rifle against it and shifted around slightly, putting pressure on it from different angles to make sure it was stable. Finally, she stood, and gave them both a nod. "No problem. I could probably hit it from twice that distance. But how are we going to set up that shot?"

Terrance grinned at the two of them. It was not a friendly grin.

* * *

_Fuck fuck FUCK fuck fuck!_

Gaul could not stop cursing, but in acknowledgement of the circumstances, he did it in his mind instead of out loud as he slipped quietly over the back end of the bowling alley roof as the moon started to set. It was a bit of a drop, but he avoided using a car to make an easier landing, because the last thing he wanted was Mama paying him a visit.

He froze the moment he landed and listened, but there was no sound from the nest and no shout from Clair, who was watching Mama for signs of movement, so he started to head for the dead raider. He did not run. Running made noise, and he was in no rush so long as he wasn't noticed, so he walked calmly. He didn't even crouch. He was careful to watch his step, however, because the kind of stories he'd heard that included "and then the twig snapped" usually ended with a gruesome ending.

For a brief moment, he considered just moving on. With those two on the roof, he could just keep walking, and nobody would ever know. But if they were watching, it would not take more than a tossed rock to draw her attention to him and fuck his day. Besides, they seemed to actually trust him.

The idea of being trusted with the life and death of strangers was endearing… and a little painful. It was not something he was accustomed to, or particularly wanted. Enlightened self interest was usually his thing, not trust or charity. But in this case, it might be best to work with them. Worst case, they could share a cold drink or a warm stomach together at the end.

Gaul filed that thought away and got to work.

The raider had not passed easily. The deathclaw had taken a few swipes at his chest armor before accepting that it was too much trouble to open up. Instead, she grabbed a limb and simply pulled until the armor, and the limb, gave up.

She saved the helmet for last, too. Poor bastard.

He flipped the torso over and slowly rotated the valve that kept the core in place, releasing the air pressure that kept the suit engaged with the quietest hiss he could manage. The moment the air pressure dropped enough, the armor slid open, depositing what was left of the raider at his feet with a wet slap.

He did his best to ignore the body at his feet while he removed the fusion core and started heading back to the back of the bowling alley. His skin might have been crawling with every step towards the nest, but at least he didn't have Terrance's job.

* * *

Terrance slipped off the roof as far from the deathclaw as he could and snuck around to the corner of the building. She was still there on the edge of the garage, and her rhythmic breathing and lack of sudden, deadly fury implied she was either sleeping or just unaware enough to not notice him looking at her.

So he shot her.

Mama promptly went _bugfuck_. There was no aggressive posing and no intimidation. She simply stood and charged, running on four limbs fast enough to outpace almost anything else in the wastelands.

Terrance didn't even watch to see if he hit her. The moment he took his shot, he was hauling ass down the road, running for a two story house that was mostly intact, just off the main road. He could feel the ground shake as she charged, one thundering lunge at a time, and when he suddenly heard the creature exhale sharply, he tumbled to one side, feeling the air of her passing as she swiped at him before her mass carried her a few more meters down the road. She slammed her limbs down, her claws ripping apart ancient asphalt like paper as she tried to stop, but Terrance was already up and sprinting, running around the nearest house.

The thumping began again, getting closer and closer until he ducked into the doorway of the empty house. He wanted to stop and rest, but he kept running, darting through the living room with the rotting sofa and into the dusty kitchen. He had placed his foot on the bottom-most step when the deathclaw smashed through the wall behind him. Ancient wood parted like paper around her. Bits of plastic siding scattered across the room. The only reason Terrance survived was the old refrigerator, still solid enough to rock and slide instead of explode when the deathclaw slammed into it. He scrambled up the stairs, just inches ahead of the vicious clawed hands, and stopped briefly only when he heard the crash as the stairs gave way under the creature's tremendous weight.

He stopped at the top landing and glanced down to see the deathclaw standing calmly, her single good eye nearly glowing with incandescent fury as she tried to figure out how to reach him. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself, then smirked and tipped his hat to her. "Best get back to your nest, m'lady," he said.

Apparently no female, not even a female deathclaw, appreciated the phrase "m'lady", because the moment he uttered it she lashed out, smashing into the walls and ripping apart supporting timbers with silent fury. Terrance felt the entire floor he was standing on shudder and ran for a window, crawling out just before the floor sagged and collapsed. He clawed his way up the steep incline of the roof and pressed himself into the shadow of the old brick chimney, gulping air as quietly as he could.

Then he felt the frame of the house shudder and a furious roar as the deathclaw below him started demolishing the house completely.

"Fuck!" he shouted as loud as he could. "Gaul! She's not going to be distracted much longer!"

* * *

Mama was going to kill this human. She smashed her body through another wall and stomped around a moment, looking at the house as she did so. That annoying human was still up there, she could hear him shouting. She let out another snarl and nudged a wall with her shoulder. It didn't collapse, so she stepped back inside.

She'd lived a long time, and dealt with humans and their caves before. Some of them, like her new nest, were made of stone and broke only with a great deal of effort. But most of them were made of plants and leaves and could not stand up to her strength. She knew if she smashed enough of it, the rest would fall with a simple push, and having already had one collapse on top of her in the past, she knew to always break out of the house and not in when she was destroying it. That human was going to die, as soon as she broke enough walls.

Then she heard another human shout _from her nest!_

She turned and screamed, seeing the ghoul she'd chased up the wall a week ago standing at the door to her cave, a large egg is his hands.

_He touched her nest!_

Ignoring the annoying human above, she charged, and felt a touch of satisfaction when the ghoul dropped her egg and ran like the weak creature it was. She saw him do the same thing he did the first time they met, using one of the big human rocks to jump on top of the place where the ghouls once lived, and she let out a victorious howl once she reached her nest. She wished briefly for the ability to jump like these damned humans, so she could get up there and murder him, but she'd already tried climbing that wall and found it smooth and too strong to dig her claws in for purchase.

She leaned over and tenderly poked at her egg, and finding it unharmed, she picked it up and buried it into her nest once more before taking her place at the entrance with a contented snarl. That annoying human could stay up there all he wanted. Eventually, he'd have to come down, and when he did, she would rip him apart and add him to her nest.

Then she cocked her head. Something was off about her nest, something more than the disturbance from the ghoul. His scent was everywhere, but it was mostly focused on the nest itself… and one small corner of her cave, on the outside. She turned her head, trying to bring that side into view through her one bad eye.

There was a small cylinder there.

She knew about grenades. She knew about how dangerous small human cylinders could be. She roared and turned to retreat into her nest and dig up her eggs.

Then her world dissolved into explosive nuclear fire.

* * *

Clair expected the fusion core to explode, but she didn't expect the entire refueling station to blow, taking the two rusted out cars with it in one massive cloud of fire. Somewhere buried in the pipes, enough fuel had remained to detonate, causing a second explosion to shake the earth and blow the roof off the station. There was one final, furious roar from within before the walls collapsed inward, cutting the roar off with a sudden heavy thud.

"Fuck me," said Gaul quietly. "Hey, Terrance, you alive?" he shouted.

"Yep," Terrance shouted back. "Lets get the fuck out of here. You may survive the rads, but I sure the hell won't."

The three of them gathered behind the bowling alley, and after a few minutes, they decided to head to the other side of town to scavenge supplies before they continued on.

* * *

It took most of the day before the burning remains of the station finally cooled. Once the flames ceased, by the light of the new moon, the wreckage within heaved as the deathclaw unburied herself from the wreckage.

He skin steamed and wept from the burning temperatures, and along the very top of her spiked and armored shoulders, those plates and spikes had been reduced to charred bone. Her one good eye had been damaged by the hellish heat, making the world around her foggy and difficult to focus on.

But her lungs were still strong, as was her sense of smell. She snarled to herself, taking slow, wobbly steps and hissing with every stretch of her horrific injuries, until she leaned against the wall of the bowling alley.

She sniffed carefully. All three humans had gathered nearby, and she took the time and effort to memorize the scent. Her eggs had been crushed when her bluk had collapsed onto them, and she had spent several hours marinating in her own brood and a burning, furious hatred.

The humans had fled. She would follow.

* * *

**A/N:** For those of you who followed before, sorry for the delay. I went through a long period of creative drought, and am only now starting to surface from it.

For those of you who came from OEFOW, that's also being worked on, albeit at a slower rate.

Worth note, every town I visit will be a real location (This was Newton, IL 62448). I actually plotted out the destinations, and hope to draw from local history when possible to weave into the story. In this case, not much to add, sadly, I just needed a fairly generic starting point to get the story started, but the next stop has a very specific bit of local color that will be relevant. Suffice to say, this is a work of fiction, and does not represent the real world policies, political nature, beliefs, or otherwise represents the modern, real world locations I discuss. After all, not like they have real vaults or ghouls out there, yeah?


End file.
